A Historical Quest (lxngdon x Spectre of the Fade)

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Charlotte frowned. "I'm sorry. About your mum," she clarified. She couldn't imagine what she would have done without a mother in her childhood. She also couldn't imagine what her father would be like, either. Probably not as cold or distant as Dalton's father apparently was, but he would most likely have been an emotionless void. Alex would have probably taken over.

She leaned over the table and put her hand over his, looking up at him sincerely. "I'm sure she'd have been very proud of you," she promised him. How could she not have been? He was leading in a field of something he loved and was excellent at. What wasn't there to be proud of?​
 
[fieldbox=Dalton, #33cccc, solid, 12, georgia]The expression on Dalton's face started with pleasant surprise, passing through a soft, fond smile before turning into a wide, beaming grin. "Thank you," he said, with no small amount of sincerity. "Appreciate the gesture, but my mommy issues aren't that bad. Izzy kind of filled the role of female parent figure, so I didn't turn out too bad with that." He turned his hand over, taking Charlotte's hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze before letting go, turning his attention back to his Coke. "Pretty glad for that, honestly. That would be a really weird kink to have," he remarked before draining the drink.

Dalton proceeded to lay out the pieces of his gun again, intending to finish the task he'd begun before takeoff then so he didn't forget. "Have much experience with guns, Miss Huntington-Price? This is a side arm, by the way. Handgun, pistol, whatever you want to call it."[/fieldbox]
 
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Charlotte looked down at the gun and grimaced. "Experience? Not really. The gun laws in Australia are pretty strict. There was a huge massacre in 1996 in Tasmania and after that, the government got their shit together and outlawed guns unless you get a license, which are pretty hard to get." She sighed. "I think, with all the shootings in America, they should do the same. Too many people are getting killed."

The gun situation in America made Charlotte pretty sad. In her opinion it was a pretty simple issue to solve. They could just take all the guns, right? Charlotte was a pretty argumentative person and she loved debating, and there were good points on both sides of the issue. Even though she didn't live in America she liked to throw herself in.

"I trust you, though," she said with a grin. "You seem like quite a rational bloke."​
 
[Fieldbox=Dalton, #33cccc, solid, 12, georgia]Dalton meticulously cleaned the gun's last piece while he contemplated Charlotte's response, giving a chuckle when she called him rational. "Oh, sweetheart, no. I wouldn't go as far as rational. Trustworthy, maybe. Vaguely trustworthy," he told her jokingly, offering a charming smile while he deftly puts the gun back together like the pieces of a complex puzzle.

It's a few seconds before he offers a counterargument. "Alright. America cracks down on gun laws, a lot of people get their toys taken away, lots of people are pissed but gun violence in metropolitan areas has indeed gone down," he began, fingers unceasing in their movements though his eyes are on Charlotte. He doesn't really care about the issue, personally, but debates are fun and she seems like the right person to do it with. "But America is not mostly metropolitan. What happens to the farmer, without the time or money for a license, trying to keep the raccoons out of his chicken coops? What about the rancher who needs to protect his herd from wolves and coyotes, or bear and cougar? Or people like my father, living in the swamps, needing something with stopping power to stop the gators from eating his dog or his kids?" Dalton's tone is calm and curious, as he just wants a debate. Fights aren't fun. Well...fights like the one over gun laws aren't.[/fieldbox]
 
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Charlotte pursed her lips to hide her delight. Debates were fun, and she seemed to have found someone to do them with who could actually come up with worthy counter-arguments.

"So do what Australia did," suggested Charlotte, shrugging. "Make sure everyone who wants a gun goes through a rigorous test before they get their license, and only for hunting purposes, if they live in rural areas. Not everyone in the city needs a fucking gun." Charlotte shifted so her legs were on the seat beside her, her arm under her head and her face towards Dalton. "If the CIA can't protect the president from an assassin, normal civilians don't stand a fuckin' chance against some gang member."​
 
[Fieldbox=Dalton, #33cccc, solid, 12, Georgia]"Good to know I'm dead, then," Dalton joked with a smile, just before finishing up the reassembly of his weapon. He didn't have a direct counter argument; her logic was fairly sound. Still, he had to respond..Mm. "With how many times I've gotten into hairy situations like that?" He gives a low whistle, leaning back in the chair after resting his gun on the table, well away from Charlotte in an attempt at respect. "According to that logic, I should be dead dozens of times over. Guess I'm just a lucky man." Pausing, shifting, fingers twitching and tapping, he was dynamic as he thought up his response. "Do you think a system like that can, realistically, be applied to a country of three hundred million plus, most of them raised on guns and capitalism and the idea of freedom to do whatever?

"I could go off about how the right to bear arms is one of the founding principles of the country, but that is idealistic and I doubt you'd buy into it." He shrugged softly, smile reappearing. "So, I ask whether or not you think such a system couldn't be used, abused, and bogged down under miles and miles of red tape in a country such as America? That it couldn't be corrupted to hurt instead of help, that gun control will be good enough to back it up, that the guns and the licenses for them be affordable to people who really need them for threats that aren't other people but kept away from those who would do harm?"[/Fieldbox]
 
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"Ooh, so many points to cover." Charlotte clapped her hands together in delight. "Yay, I love debates."

She sat up fully and faced him. "The statistical likelihood of some random person committing gun violence without a record is very slim, so if, when someone comes in to get a gun license and you put them through that rigorous test aforementioned, you run their name and check their record, you're going to avoid a shit ton of crime." Charlotte reached up and untied her hair, letting the golden curls fall all around her shoulders. "That keeps them available for people who do genuinely need them and keeps them away from those who are going to do harm. And, if, on the off chance someone bad does obtain a gun, you can enforce police presence and provide better home security for people in suburban areas to minimise the chances of them being hurt."

In Charlotte's opinion she had a pretty sound argument, but she was willing to hear anything Dalton could say in response. That was the point of debate, right? Winning was just an added bonus.​
 
[Fieldbox=Dalton, #33cccc, solid, 12, Georgia]"Background checks are already a thing, required by all states, and the gun violence situation is still what it is." Dalton shifted around, like he had difficulty staying still for longer than a few seconds. Pale green eyes had stayed on Charlotte, however, as she spoke and let her hair down. "The biggest problems, if you wanted to crack down on gun control like you're talking about, are the black market trade of firearms and how much the populace really fucking loves their guns. I mean-" The word dropped off suddenly, like Dalton had interrupted himself in the middle of a line of thought to switch to another. "Could I do your hair sometime?"

Dalton was silent for a moment or two, waiting for a response, then the weirdness of his request hit him. "Right. That probably sounded worse than I meant," he added, to try and provide explanation for the random and odd nature of the question. He knew he would be curious about things like that, so he tended to assume others would be, too. "My sisters had me do their hair when I was a kid. Uh, Ros and Naya did, anyways. A long chain of psychological reactions and associations later, I enjoy playing with other people's hair. Not in a weird semi-psycho creepy way, I promise. Well, everything relating to the mind is weird. But this isn't that weird."[/Fieldbox]
 
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Charlotte smiled. He was sweet.

"You can play with my hair anytime," she assured him. She checked the time and found that in half an hour, they would be landing in Athens, and Charlotte was so excited.

She reached up to her hair and quickly braided it. "I have really thin hair, so don't rip it out, please, Dalton," she begged.​
 
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